On 25/05/2011 honned wrote:>is it just me, but i think the new nowra guide is rubbish. >>the photos and topos are crap, the type is like something out of a book>for the visually impaired, and the design is from the 1990s.>>why didnt they get someone decent to do the job like simon carters crew>or the grampian bouldering lot?

On 26/05/2011 tnd wrote:>At least it has capital letters at the beginning of every sentence.

I don't think the grammar of a forum post has much to do with it.

To me the design does seem a bit cheap (like it was done on MS word), but it does the job. All the renamed climbs are a bigger shame. I don't know if first ascentionists were consulted etc. (though i've heard they weren't), but regardless, removing an element of the history of the place for the sake of political correctness seems like pretty poor form to me, even if "Murdoch the horse f*cker" doesn't appeal to your sense of humour.

I do think that paying a designer to do the job would have been money well spent. The quality of guidebooks worldwide has really steeped up a notch in the last few years. The main problem I have with this new Nowra guide is the bad use of space. Fonts are too large, no columns and way too much space between lines. The guide could have easily been printed half the size, and presumably thus substantially cheaper.

In my opinion a Guidebook is a useful tool to find crags and climbs at it's basic level. Expanding on that it gives travel and accomodation options, and expanding even further to crag history and where applicable stories behind the climbs....

I think this guidebook does more than the job required.

I think we are being a little petty. I'm not saying I found it to be the holy grail of guide books but a more constructive discussion would be a thread about "What would I like to see in the next guidebook..." as mentioned above.

It is 120% better than the previous guide which was 120% better than the guide before it...

I'm not weighing into the debate on names, but I have no problem with the family friendly new names found them as ammusing as the ones with the not so creative language........

I had a brief look at it the other day and the first thing I noticed was the size of the font and layout - there were only about 6 routes to a page! That does seem silly.

It was obviously only a brief look, because I didn't notice the name changes, but I won't miss many of the originals. Whilst Murdoch might have been funny and vaguely meaningful, it all went rapidly downhill and the gutter porn names were for the most part not even clever or amusing. I think they probably added to the image of Nowra as a skanky crag in a skanky area with skanky ethics.

Did they change the one in French? For those who knew enough French slang to understand it?

On 26/05/2011 alg wrote:>On 26/05/2011 tnd wrote:>>At least it has capital letters at the beginning of every sentence.>>I don't think the grammar of a forum post has much to do with it.

The "new nowra guide badly produced" post was badly produced! How you present your argument has a lot to do with how valid people will think it is, almost regardless of content.

I haven't purchased or looked at the new Nowra guidebook, so my comments aren't specific to it...

Once you've spent cash on a well polished guidebook for an area, you're going to resent having to pay for a less polished production for a different area. It'll do the job of providing you with the information you need, but will also scream 'missed opportunity' in terms of presentation (and probably p*ss you off because of that).

In Australia, it's unlikely that there'll be 2 modern guidebooks for a given area, so you can't even vote with your wallet. Parts of the UK are served by multiple guidebook producers - with the competition resulting in much slicker productions.

On 26/05/2011 ..::- Chris -::.. wrote:>I'm not weighing into the debate on names, but I have no problem with>the family friendly new names found them as ammusing as the ones with the>not so creative language........

On 26/05/2011 Wendy wrote:>...the gutter>porn names were for the most part not even clever or amusing.

Classics like "Blue Veined Custard Chucker" and "Receiver of Swollen Goods" always amused me. Not so much the unimaginative "Blowjob Queens from Hell" and "Motorcycle Sluts in Heat". Have they all been cleaned up?

On 26/05/2011 Climboholic wrote:>On 26/05/2011 ..::- Chris -::.. wrote:>>I'm not weighing into the debate on names, but I have no problem with>>the family friendly new names found them as ammusing as the ones with>the>>not so creative language........ >>I'm not going to contradict myself, but I just did.

I'm not going to argue with you about my point but...... F#$K you.... or in New Nowra guidebook form.... Fork you ; )